The Thirteenth Doctor Chronicles - Part Two - The Magic School Teacher
by the stargate time traveller
Summary: Missy was not the only Time Lord to get away from Gallifrey before the Doctor discovered his/her people had escaped, and now the Doctor tracks the other Time Lady down. A Time Lady with a Magic School Bus.
1. Chapter 1

I own neither Doctor Who nor The Magic School Bus franchise.

Please let me know what you think.

* * *

The Magic School Teacher.

Miss Fiona Frizzle let out a breath as she watched as her class walked out of the classroom following the lesson of the day, and she went over to the desk left behind by her immediate predecessor and sat down in it and closed her eyes for a moment before she lifted up her hand and it started to glow with residual energy. She glowered a little bit at the sight of it, no regeneration pun intended.

Her body was still recovering from her recent regeneration, and she felt she needed the rest after managing - successfully - to channel it into taking her class to the Galapagos islands on that field trip before Arnold, once more demonstrating his endless quality of being irritating and careless since he didn't like change, had left behind that invasive plant which had engulfed the island.

The timeline had been negated, thankfully, so there was no lasting damage, but she had very nearly lost her temper with the boy.

How could he so stupid? She knew Arnold wasn't generally a fan of the field trips, but whereas the rest of the class had accepted her pretty much instantly, the bespectacled boy hadn't, and he had gone out of his way to cause problems simply because he didn't like change. She knew not many people did either, but they would often get used to it pretty quickly without being petulant and childish.

Forcing herself out of the chair, Fiona walked to the door and she very quickly found herself smiling at the sight of the bright yellow school bus, and she petted it gently on the side.

"Good job today, old girl," she smiled at the yellow coloured body before she opened the door and strode up the steps before she pressed a button on the dashboard. Instantly the glass windows near the back of the bus opened up revealing two doors which led into another room.

Fiona smirked, picturing the reactions of the class while she walked slowly towards the doors which opened up into another dimension, but since she was trying to keep a low (more or less, since her school bus could not only change its shape, but could also travel to places ordinary human forms of transport couldn't even reach) profile, that wasn't a wise move since she still had awful memories of how the Family of Gore had pursued her through time and space before she had destroyed the Vortex Manipulator they had stolen.

She closed her eyes as she remembered that time, how she had been hunted when they had caught her scent, chasing her through time and space like a star whale being hunted by a whaling ship, and she had travelled at warp speed much like their primitive spacecraft did, only she had made them follow her for weeks in a tractor field to make them wither and die, but unfortunately they had passed on her scent to other groups of their kind, so she was forced to hide.

She walked over the threshold of the double doors and she smiled as she felt the familiar humming of the TARDIS. She rested as she leaned against the console and took a few breaths to try to stop the pain in her head. _Omega, her head hurt!_

She was still so new to this new regeneration, but she had to send the holographic form of her previous self back into the past which she had recorded earlier to help her students have an easy transition - part of her wished she had access to Drax's Blinovitch-limitation-effect limiter, but even in a post-Time War universe, the last thing she wanted was to cause any trouble with time even if her people had survived the Time War.

Yes, the hologram was a bit of a paradox, especially since she knew what Arnold would do, and she remembered when she had still been in her old body how he had spoken to her, so creating the hologram and programming it just right wasn't difficult.

Miss Frizzle leaned against the TARDIS console and closed her eyes before she suddenly had a brief post regenerative fit, although she had no idea it dislodged and shut off the psychic inhibitor she had been using to hide her presence from anyone specifically hunting down telepathic races.

The Time War.

Just thinking about that monumental hell was enough to make her feel ill, especially considering the lengths the High Council had been willing to go; conspiring to get her kicked out of office when she had managed to cause more damage against the Daleks, only for them to betray her and bring that madman Rassilon back from where he belonged, in that damn tomb of his to lead the council in the war, as if they were the only ones standing between the Daleks and control of the universe.

The most tragic thing about it was she had known the Council could not be trusted. It was her history with the Doctor, and her renegade tendencies which had made them wary of her.

But now she no longer cared. She had found she preferred her new life here, on Earth. Yes, it might be a Level Five civilisation, the natives might actually be incredibly stupid at times, but teaching them was better than leading the High Council of Gallifrey. Romana closed her eyes and pushed herself away from the console before she went to the Architectural Reconfiguration System, and she brought the corridor with the Zero room closer to the console room since she didn't fancy walking through the corridors in her current state.

She smiled when she saw the programmed architecture beeped to indicate the task was done, and she walked out of the console room, and she suddenly found her head swamped with the strong dimensional forces of the copy of the Eye of Harmony which helped power the TARDIS. She was in a large hallway and she smiled when she saw the Zero Room double doors. She walked over and entered it. There was nothing inside the Zero Room, and since it was outside the dimension the interior of the TARDIS existed within, the stress of her brain suddenly went away. She took a deep breath and performed a few yoga-style moves before she closed her eyes and pressed her fingers against her temples to help her concentrate. She felt her body lifting itself up and swinging around gently before she found herself levitating above the floor. Once she was in the correct levitation posture, she closed her eyes and, with her Time Lord training, she entered a healing coma.

Miss Frizzle, otherwise known as Romanadvoratrelundar, now in her fifth incarnation, let herself fall into the coma deeply.

XXX

The Doctor was very bored as she walked back to her TARDIS as she went down the flight of stairs towards the plaza of Yaz's home. It had been a bit too _human _in the flat for her, and she had wanted some time to herself. She felt emotionally drained after fighting off against the Reconnaissance Dalek which had been revived by accident.

_Daleks.._

_I had really hoped I wouldn't encounter them for a long time, especially in this new body. _

The Doctor blamed herself for all the deaths and the destruction the Dalek had caused, how she had not realised it had hijacked the body of Lin and used her body to find the right parts to construct it a new casing but not before it had killed several people who had gotten in its way. The casing had been effective enough, although it would have been primitive in comparison to the advanced alien technology it was more accustomed to using to move around.

It had been a long time since she'd encountered and fought the Daleks, and this was the first time she had ever met any of the vile mutants since her previous incarnation; that time she had seen them with Bill didn't count.

She also cursed herself for not bothering to destroy the filthy creature. Instead she had decided to just speak to it instead of doing anything to destroy the creature before it caused any more death and destruction. Indeed, she had gone into that farm, determined to kill it, but the problem she was starting to face about this new incarnation of hers, was her new personality wasn't geared for the kind of mindset her Ninth self had been more in league with.

She had no doubt in her mind her friends would want to talk with her about the Dalek, but she didn't really want to even _think _about it, given how hypocritical she was since she had told Graham she'd kick him out of the TARDIS if he had gone after Tzim-Sha. In truth, she wouldn't have honestly blamed her friend if he had, given what the Stenza had done to Grace.

The Doctor blew out a breath as she walked out into the night air, shivering a little bit as the cold went through her clothes and into her skin; her scarf was good, but the rest of her clothes weren't really practical for keeping out the cold. She was halfway across the plaza when suddenly she paused as she felt something in her telepathic senses before she heard the faint whisper in the back of her mind where she would normally hear the voices of other Time Lords.

The Doctor's eyes widened. Ever since she had remembered what had happened to Clara, she had been aware of how her people were keeping themselves hidden from the threats of the universe, especially the Daleks and all the other time-travelling enemies her people now had. Her people had remained hidden away from her so she couldn't feel their presence. It was only Missy's presence which had given her hope she wasn't alone, and now Missy's voice was gone, making her wonder what had happened to her old enemy.

But this wasn't Missy.

No, this was someone else.

This was another old friend, someone whom she had not seen for centuries.

"Romana," she whispered, shocked that her old friend had survived all this time. Ignoring the cold, the Doctor raced across the plaza towards the TARDIS, her hand skilfully digging through her pockets to where her key was, and she unlocked the door quickly. Immediately she ran to the console, and she began setting the controls. She cleared the helmic regulator and engaged the multi-loop stabiliser, and the synchronic feedback circuit before she pressed her hands against the telepathic circuit contacts. Her control over the TARDIS was improving in this new incarnation, but the old girl was always one to be temperamental even after that mess with House where her eleventh self had passed on a greater understanding of the TARDIS's mindset concerning her travels, but this was one old friend she really wanted to see each other, and one whom she knew wouldn't stab her in the back as Missy had. It was rare she encountered another Time Lord who followed her agenda, and as she pressed her hands on the contacts to get the telepathic circuits going after she had modified them in the same manner as the time her previous self had worked with Clara, the TARDIS dematerialised as it followed the source of the telepathic voice.

Very quickly the TARDIS materialised and she removed her hands from the contacts. She looked at the readings on the console and saw she was still on Earth, in the 21st century. She had only moved countries, now instead of Britain, she was now in America.

The Doctor turned on the scanner and took a look. She was surprised to find herself looking at what looked like a _school _of all places. _Why is Romana here? Still, this is where the TARDIS traced her voice, so she's got to be here. _

Turning back to the console, the Doctor started scanning the area for any sign of artron energy, and it beeped loudly when it detected a large source really close. The Doctor programmed the console to show the source, and she turned back to the scanner when she saw the sight of a bright yellow school bus.

The Doctor laughed as she recognised the other TARDIS even with the chameleon circuit activated. "Oh, that's cool!" she gushed, clapping her hands before she turned back to the console to scan the other TARDIS. "Hmm, a Type 60…ooh, haven't seen one of those in a long time, especially since they were retired formally from service centuries back," the Doctor whispered to herself, patting the console. "Looks like you've got a friend with something in common, old girl."

The Doctor was about to rush out of the TARDIS to meet her old friend again, but then she paused. One thing about being female now, the Doctor had come to realise she couldn't just rush into places impulsively, even if she was still impulsive at times. The Doctor went back to the telepathic circuits and she sent a telepathic call through to the other TARDIS…

XXX

Romana's eyes shot open and she sat up when the telepathic message penetrated her TARDIS and entered her mind.

"Doctor?" she whispered.


	2. Chapter 2

The Magic School Teacher.

The Doctor smiled when she received a telepathic message through the circuits of her TARDIS. She pressed her hands onto the contacts and closed her eyes to better concentrate.

"_Romana?" _

"_Doctor, is that really you?" _

"_Yes, it's me."_

"_There's something different about your telepathic voice, Doctor."_

"_It's a long story," _the Doctor replied, wondering how Romana would take her new gender; Time Lords had such fluid lives thanks to their regenerations, but that didn't mean occasionally there were exceptions.

"_Where are you?"_

"_I'm outside your TARDIS; since when did you work in a school? When I first saw the setting, I was curious, but I worked out why you were here when I saw the form your TARDIS took."_

"_You're outside my TARDIS? Wait a moment…. Oh, you're still using that old police box, aren't you? Looks different, but that doesn't matter. Listen, how about we have a talk?"_

"_That sounds great. I'll be there in a minute," _the Doctor replied, lifting her hands to cut off the connection, and she walked over to the TARDIS doors, skipping over to them; while she had definite questions about what Romana was doing here, she was relieved she wasn't the only good Time Lord left in the cosmos.

She walked out of the TARDIS and she walked over to the yellow school bus, smiling when she placed her hand on the Exo-chronoplasmic shell, feeling the tingle of chameleonic shielding. Her smile widened, even more, when the doors opened, and she stepped inside. She was slightly surprised that instead of finding herself in the familiar interior of a TARDIS, she was in fact in the interior of a very ordinary school bus; okay the dashboard looked different compared to what she normally found in cars and in buses, but otherwise, it looked and appeared normal in her mind. She smiled enviously, realising Romana was using her TARDIS's atrium circuits to present the illusion of a school-bus. Two doors at the far end were open, revealing the interior of the TARDIS.

The Doctor walked through the opening and she smiled when she saw the deep blue colour of the desktop theme which was more cosier than the white colour her first seven incarnations had used down the line before experimenting with more unusual desktops, but the only thing this interior had in common with her own was the wall to ceiling time rotor, otherwise it looked virtually identical to how her desktop had been in her first few lives.

Standing by the console was a woman with red hair wearing a blue top and a flowery skirt. The woman's smile faltered a little as she looked at the Doctor with surprise.

"A female incarnation?" she asked.

The Doctor nodded. "Yeah, I wanted something new following the gift of my second regeneration cycle at some point; granted, it was unexpected, but I've come to like it."

"A second regeneration cycle? How did you get it?"

"The Time Lords gave it to me," the Doctor replied as Romana led her to a small room next to the console room, and she smiled when she saw the two armchairs with a plateful of assorted biscuits including her favourite custard creams, and a pot of hot sweet-smelling tea, and two cups.

Romana looked at her with surprise. "Gallifrey _survived?"_

The Doctor frowned as the pair of them both sat down in their seats, both of them chatting together for the first time in a long time. "Yes, it survived; I thought I was the one to destroy Gallifrey, but I found a unique set of circumstances which allowed me to save them. You didn't know?"

"No, I didn't. I mean, I have been out in the universe a few times, but I haven't really listened out for any sign of the other Time Lords being alive," Romana replied. "How did you survive when you thought you'd _destroyed _Gallifrey?"

"I don't know; the memory is hazy, but I thought I had simply run back into the TARDIS and took off at the last minute as the Moment activated, but now I know it didn't happen since my wartime incarnation had actually placed Gallifrey in a parallel pocket universe like those stasis cubes, I simply left the site and went to Earth before I left it again, and then I lost my memory since the timelines were out of sync since I'd been working with different incarnations," the Doctor replied, her tone clipped to make the other Time Lady see this was not one of those subjects she even wanted to think about.

"The Moment? It had come to that?" Romana whispered, not saying anything about the violation of the limitation effect; with how badly warped time was, it wouldn't be difficult to break a few more Time Laws in the process.

The Doctor poured some tea for herself and took a sip. "I was tired of it all, Romana," she said darkly as she unlocked the strongbox she usually used to hide all those dark memories away. "Rassilon had decided to use the Tear of Isha to seal up the Tantalus Eye despite there being humans there without even bothering to think of a better solution since if the Daleks there had been destroyed, they would simply start again somewhere else. I agreed the Daleks needed to be stopped since they had developed dematerialisation weapons."

"Oh no," Romana whispered.

"Oh, yes," the Doctor replied. "It gets worse, and you can see the urgency from Rassilon's perspective since I'd taken proof back to Gallifrey the Daleks were using the anomaly there to power a large weapon which would wipe out the Time Lords. Anyway, I'd taken one of the human freedom fighters with me, but Karlax murdered her shortly after he'd regenerated. Let's just say he didn't have long to regret it."

Romana raised an eyebrow but decided it was best not to ask. In any case, she didn't care for the obsequious little Time Lord who'd never caught onto the fact he wasn't as important as he'd thought. "I used something else to seal up the Tantalus Eye, but the Time Lords never once considered the fact we'd be destroying more lives, just to get at the Daleks."

A part of Romana and the Doctor both knew the Time Lords had done the only thing they could, but they both knew they had gone about it the wrong way. More than once during her time fighting the Daleks during the war, Romana had done her best to try to stop her people from going too far, but it hadn't always worked out since she'd been forced to make the horrific choices since she knew anyone else would have screwed up badly.

"I'd had enough of the lot of them, Romana," the Doctor's harsh voice broke through Romana's musings, and the currently redheaded Time Lady focused on her old friend. "I was tired of the Time Lords. Their arrogance, their belief they were the only ones who mattered in the universe….it made me wonder at times when Rassilon would lobotomise the lot of us, and stick us inside metal tanks. I was also sick of the war, sick of the bloodshed…I just had to stop it. You would think the battles would be enough, but did you know Rassilon had _planned to destroy the universe, _just to end the war?"

"What?" Romana whispered, wondering if the regeneration had affected her mind.

The Doctor closed her eyes for a moment before she opened them again. "He had this insane scheme in mind where our people would have ascended to become beings of consciousness alone as he destroyed the Time Vortex."

"_**WHAT?" **_Romana screamed in outrage, and she almost knocked over her teacup. "He was going to destroy everything since the war wasn't going his own way?"

"It looks like it. Don't ask me why - I don't understand the logic," the Doctor said grimly with a sigh. "I found out about the activation of the plan for the Ultimate Sanction," she paused to take in the reaction of her friend, "when I came back to Gallifrey to find some way to end the war once and for all. When I heard the plan, it just justified my plans in my mind. But…looking back, I realise I hadn't realised just how lonely and lost I'd be," she looked down, and the sudden grief in her face was terrible for Romana to see. This grief...no-one should have it in their eyes, never mind someone as passionate as the Doctor, who valued life and exploration more than anything. Romana could only guess what Rassilon's mad plan had done to her friend.

The younger Time Lady was horrified with herself. She had spent so long hiding away when one of her best friends had been suffering all this time.

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have hidden myself," she whispered.

The Doctor looked up, and Romana had to hide a smile when she saw the familiar glint of curiosity in the Doctor's eyes. "Yeah," she said slowly, "how did you get out of the war? I remember, you seemed to have disappeared from the fighting."

Romana looked down at her hands. "Do you remember when I was ousted from my presidency by Rassilon and the rest of the Council?"

"I'm hardly likely to forget it, Romana."

"Well, I continued to go out on missions for the Time Lords, either by my own authority since I had become sick of looking at the councillors, especially that little toad Karlax," Romana paused as the Doctor chuckled darkly before she carried on, "or with some councillors knowing about it. Truth be told, I doubt they really cared. Anyway, I had just returned to Gallifrey with a few other Time Lords, only to arrive before an attack by Dalek ships. They were trying to steal a TARDIS for some reason. I stopped them, but the Daleks bombed the Citadel before the Time Lords got the Barriers raised in time. Anyway, I was thrown into one of the TARDISes, and I threw the dematerialisation switch, but I will never know how it happened… but I jumped time tracks, and I found myself away and alone. I couldn't get back because the universe had time locked the war. I looked for Katerborous, only to find nothing. Before I could do anything more, I was under attack by these…. I still don't know who and what they are, but they tracked me down through multiple eras before I realised they were tracking me down because of the TARDIS and my telepathy. I turned myself human, and I landed on Earth in the 18th century."

"I never encountered anyone like you've just described," the Doctor whispered as she thought about the various races and groups which had arisen in the chaotic place the universe had become with the absence of Gallifrey."But there are dozens of people out there who'd love to have a piece of Time Lord DNA and technology."

"As I said, I never found out about them either. Anyway, I spent a few years on Earth before I returned to my Time Lady self, and I went out again…only I was attacked by the Family of Gore. They wanted to live forever when they realised they could make use of my DNA and my regeneration energy. I damaged their ship so they'd travel slowly and I travelled for a few months before the last life sign of their ship died out," Romana looked at her hands for a moment before she reached out for a chocolate digestive.

"The Family of Gore? I wonder if they're related in any way to the Family of Blood," the Doctor said thoughtfully.

"Did they sniff you?" Romana asked.

It was a bizarre question, but it was one the Doctor understood. "Yes," she replied.

"Then they must be. Anyway, I'd had enough of being hunted, so I travelled to Earth, and I planted a telepathic inhibitor on myself so no-one could find me. Unfortunately, by that point, I'd come to guess I was the last of our people. What about you? I mean, this Family of Blood-."

"Oh, they were just a small quartet of scavengers. They caught my scent, and they tracked the TARDIS through the Vortex. I turned myself into a human," the Doctor grimaced as she shook her head as the memories of her time in Farringham came back to haunt her. "They destroyed a local village just to get to me, and they had taken over the bodies of four humans who were innocent, and they were just in the wrong time and place, and they attacked a _school _my human self taught at."

"Oh, no," Romana whispered. "What happened?"

The Doctor sighed. "My friend, Martha Jones, didn't look after the watch. As a result, a student many of the others picked on, and just happened to have limited psychic abilities took the watch when he heard my Time Lord self inside. Anyway he returned it, but my human self was reluctant. In the end, he had no choice. I came back, but I punished the Family. They'd crossed the line. They wanted immortality so much, I gave it to them. I locked one of them into a mirror, all the mirrors, I pushed one into the collapsing galaxy, wrapped another in dwarf-star alloy chains, and suspended in time the last one."

Romana shivered a little, but she didn't make any comment about the Doctor not feeling remorse. All Time Lords had a nasty and creative side to them, so she wasn't surprised with what her friend had done, even if it was slightly out of character for someone like her. She would have done the same thing to punish the Family of Gore, and indeed she had dragged them with her for months across space until they were finally dead.

"So what's happening with Gallifrey? I mean, I can't hear them-."

"I locked Gallifrey in a parallel pocket universe, thanks to all of my past selves. They created a temporal anomaly trying to get out the first time since they changed my history, and gave me a new regeneration cycle after my last one wore down, but they eventually emerged near the end of the universe itself," the Doctor interrupted. "They've put up telepathic barriers around Gallifrey to hide themselves even more."

"I suppose that makes sense," Romana commented as she worked it all out in her mind. "At the end of the universe, there are very few alien races left, so they'd be safe."

"Not if the Daleks find them."

"The Daleks survived?" Romana was horrified.

The Doctor nodded, just as grim. "Yeah. I'd dealt with them a few times; a single Dalek in 2012, Utah because some stupid human businessman was playing dangerous games with technology beyond his understanding. The Dalek Emperor's fleet. The Cult of Skaro, twice. And one of the Cult found a crack in the Time War's time lock, and guess who came back?"

"Who?" Romana was terrified now.

"Davros. Honestly, that thing has more lives than a Time Lord. I don't know how."

Romana gaped at her in disbelief. "_Davros _is out? I'd hoped that thing was dead!"

"So did I. Oh, what was my eighth self-thinking, trying to save that piece of filth?" the Doctor finished rhetorically. "Anyway, what have you been doing here?"

Pleased the Doctor had changed the subject since talking of Daleks was enough to make her depressed, Romana smiled. "Oh, I'm a teacher here."

"A teacher?" the Doctor was surprised. "Sorry, but I didn't think you had the patience to be a teacher."

"Neither did I, but I've come to enjoy it," Romana smiled. "True, I've found some humans to be irritating, especially adults; they forced me to spend twenty years getting the right training and experience so I came this far. Although this time around, I had covered and faked my documents and I'm now a student-teacher."

"What do you mean, this time around?" the Doctor asked curiously as she caught something in Romana's last statement.

Romana sighed. "Oh, I had decided to become a professor, and I succeeded -relatively for this point in time- but I didn't want to leave my students behind since they'd grown on me, so I created a minor little paradox so this incarnation would teach them while assuming the identity of my last self's 'sister."

"A minor paradox? I hope it's nothing to worry about," the Doctor commented.

"It's not, trust me." Suddenly a wave of post-regenerative trauma washed over Romana, and she coughed some excess energy out of her body. The Doctor watched as the signature glittery energy rose up through the air, dissipating quickly. She turned to Romana in concern. "You've only just regenerated?"

Romana coughed, "Yes. And I've taken a class today to set my new identity up. It's worked. I just came back to my TARDIS to rest."

The Doctor nodded, but she was still worried. Although she knew Romana could very well take care of herself and had better control over her regenerations than she herself did, she was still subject to the same irritating laws of regeneration like all Time Lords. "So let me see if I've got this, you arrived on Earth, became a teacher, moved on to becoming a professor, but you created a paradox where your own future incarnation would take over?"

"Essentially yes. So what about you, Doctor?"

The Doctor knew what she was asking. "Oh, the usual, wandering from place to place, moving through my regenerations, meeting and saying goodbye to new friends. It never ends."

The two Time Lords moved on to more neutral and happier topics, and when the Doctor left she was happy that she had met her old friend. The next day the class returned, but there was an addition to the new Miss Frizzles desk; a framed photograph of her and a blond-haired woman wearing a long greyish-blue coat.


End file.
